


Arya and the Doctor

by Gazyrlezon



Series: Arya and the Doctor [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Just something I wrote to pass the time, also because there aren't enough crossovers between these two, during a two-hour train ride
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 09:11:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10590891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gazyrlezon/pseuds/Gazyrlezon
Summary: Maybe that’s why I keep travelling withhim, she thought,why I keep running.Oh, the TARDIS was great, of course, as were all the planets and places they’d visited together and the adventures they’d had, on queer and alien worlds that she wouldn’t even have dreamt of otherwise.But nothing,nothingcould ever compare to the comfort of truly beingunderstood, of knowing there was someone who’d lost his home the same as she had.





	

**Author's Note:**

> (Also posted on my tumblr [here](https://gazyrlezon.tumblr.com/post/159425390712/arya-fled-across-the-alien-land-the-noise-of))

Arya fled across the alien land, the noise of gunshots filling the air behind her as she ran. Not too far in front of her there was a crack in the dry brown land, stretching out all the way to the desolate horizon, much too close to stop in time before she’d reach it — jumping, she flew above it, reached the far side, stumbled, tried to regain her footing, failed and fell. Easy prey now, for the curious fishlike creatures with the terrible machines the Doctor had told her were called _guns_. 

_Oh, all you Seven Southern Hells!,_ she cursed to herself, as her own consciousness was lost on her. 

When she woke again, back in the by now well-known cell of bare white metal, there was the Doctor sitting beside her, grinning that madman’s smile of his. 

“Didn’t work?,” he asked her, as if in jest. 

“That’s not _funny!_ ,” she told him, but couldn’t help her laugh escaping, and for a moment their clean bright death-trap was filled with their cackling amusement. 

“All right,” she started again, trying to reassert control over herself and on the situation they were in, “sonicing the door won’t work, ’cause you can’t handle _wood_ , of all things. Using that chimney there” — she pointed to what the Doctor had told her was called a _ventilation shaft_ , but trying to remember all these queer terms and words he used just served to make her head hurt, so she’d decided to just call it a _chimney_ instead — “will only serve to get you a painful smack on the head and a return-trip to this cell, which isn’t worth the exhausting chase across the land. Come on, Doctor, I’ve tried my best, ’tis your turn again! Any ideas on how to escape?” 

“Yes, lots of them, obviously. I’m the Doctor, I’ve always got a lot of ideas.” 

“Any of them worth a try?” 

“Ahh, now … ” — he smiled a bit, embarrassed, ancient young eyes twinkling with amusement — “probably … not?” 

Arya couldn’t help but laugh again. 

_Funny, isn’t it? We’re sitting here in line to be killed, and yet I’m still able to laugh just fine._

For a moment then there was silence, but one of the pleasant and somewhat thoughtful sort. Suddenly, Arya was glad. Not all that long ago all her life had consisted of had been running, and silence, and hiding secrets even from herself. Of course there was a lot of running now, too, but it wasn’t nearly the same. Not that she’d stopped being afraid, no, if anything she was now more afraid then ever, but still … _somewhere it has stopped being so horrible._

So _hurting_. 

She stood up again, looking at the Doctor. 

“Maybe we could just try and talk to them … again. Maybe they’ve got some secret law that states if prisoners talk for long enough and are annoying enough they’ve got to let them go.” 

“Ah, I don’t think so. That was on Crian, I believe, and last I saw there wasn’t any gunslinging fish around on that planet, so …” he interrupted himself, looking at her frown, “Okay okay. Just try that, I don’t know anything better …” 

Walking to the front end of their shared cell (which consisted of clean white steel rods, made of something that the Doctor claimed to be harder then even Valyrian Steel, not that Arya was entirely sure if she should believe that — except for the lock, of course, which for some indiscernible reason was made from thrice-damned _wood_ ) she peered out at the fishlike creature guarding them. 

“Hello there. Again.” she began, and was answered by something what sounded like irritated bubbling. And indeed, she could see some air bubbling its way through that strange tube that was attached to the creature’s head. 

“Blub-blub,” she answered, and set back down beside the Doctor, on the clean white squarish bench-thing in the middle of the cell. 

“I don’t think it understands me any better. Why doesn’t the TARDIS translate? It always does.” 

“Ah, er … probably must’ve deleted this whatever-it-is bubble-language to make space for that simulation of whether or not one could extinguish an exploding sun by letting the water run in an average British household from the 1970ies … sorry. Ah well, I guess we’ll just have to wait. We’ll find a way, eventually.” 

_Yes_ , Arya thought _With him there’s always a way._

They’d just have to wait for something to present itself. And in case nothing would … well, nothing that would then happen could be any worse than what she’d already seen and lived through. Arya had experience with things like that, after all, and frankly more than she would’ve liked. 

Still, the fear was there, so thick and solid it felt like she could’ve grasped it with her bare hands had she reached for it. 

She didn’t say anything, though. 

She didn’t have to, after all, and anyways it would’ve broken the pretty picture of two fearless rogues valiantely facing their death-cell that she hoped they were painting right now. 

There was no need to tell him, because of course the Doctor already knew. 

Because every time she looked into those ancient yet young-looking eyes, there was the same sense of loss and defeat that she’d come to know so very well; one only had to look, and it was there, clear as day. She suspected that maybe by now it was the same with her own eyes, no matter that they were much, _much_ younger. But not many people ever really looked, of course. Except her, and the Doctor, who’d looked into each other’s. 

_Maybe that’s why I keep travelling with him,_ she thought, _why I keep running._

Oh, the TARDIS was great, of course, as were all the planets and places they’d visited together and the adventures they’d had, on queer and alien worlds that she wouldn’t even have dreamt of otherwise. 

But nothing, _nothing_ could ever compare to the comfort of truly being _understood_ , of knowing there was someone who’d lost his home the same as she had. 

She remembered when they’d first talked about that, in one of the simulated nights inside the TARDIS, when she’d been to scared to sleep. That hadn’t been so unusual for her, of course, being to scared to sleep, what _had_ been unusual was that someone came to comfort her. But the Doctor had been there, and in the dim light of the room he (or the TARDIS, Arya wasn’t entirely sure) had made for her he’d told her what he’d seen, how the flames had consumed the red fields and orange skies of Gallifrey that was. 

And she, in turn, had told him about Winterfell, of its courtyards and towers, of her family and Old Nan’s stories and finally of how it had all died that day at the Twins, or maybe even before that, when Ice had rushed down on her valiant father’s neck. 

They’d both cried that night, and stuck together ever since. 

Oh, one day maybe she’d leave again, to try and search if anything was left. But Bran and Rickon had burnt with Winterfell, Robb and her mother slaughtered by slimy old Lord Frey. Last she’d ever heard of Sansa she’d disappeared from the Red Keep, accused of Joffrey’s murder. More than likely she’d found her end raped and dead in some reeking alley, forgotten by everyone but her. 

And Jon … if there hadn’t been the TARDIS standing there in Braavoos on that dreary day, if she hadn’t (literally) run into the Doctor, she didn’t know what she would’ve done then, when she’d overheard that he’d been butchered by his so-called brothers. 

Maybe one day she’d go back, and see the ruins of the North. 

When it didn’t hurt too much. 

And until then … well, there was a bright metal cell to escape from, for one thing, and thinking of Winterfell wouldn’t help her there, so she shut that off again. 

The Doctor was looking at her, as if he knew exactly what she’d just been thinking. 

_More than likely,_ she thought, _he’s been doing just the same._

Then suddenly he sprang up, as if some thought had just popped up in his brilliant-if-slightly-mad mind, the way thoughts usually seemed to do with him, and jumped over to the chimney that wasn’t one, running his hands along its inner surface. 

“You know,” he said, “when you tried to get out, did you go up or down?” 

“Up, of course,” she said, somewhat irritated, “There’s only a shaft going upwards, after all, not one down.” 

The Doctor smiled his mad smile again. 

“Yes, or so you thought,” he cried in triumph, pointing the sonic at the thing. There was a _clack_ , followed by a _crunch_ , and then the chimney’s lower bottom fell away, revealing a second tunnel going down. 

“See? Hidden secondary maintenance shaft, probably leads right down to the central computer cortex, or possibly also the main power reactor … could be fun,” he concluded, before stepping right in front of it, his feet only inches away from the hole gaping in the floor. 

Then he turned, and looked back at her. 

“Want to come?” 

Arya rolled her eyes. “ _Obviously_ ,” she answered, just in time to see him smile and scream and jump. 

“ _Geronimo!_ ” 

Laughing at his sillyness, pausing only long enough to check that the fish-creature hadn’t noticed them (it had, of course, and was now struggling to open the wooden lock as fast as it could), Arya followed him, closing the metal trapdoor behind her. 

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm sort of surprised by this. I didn't really know that I'd write it, and neither did I know what it was going to be about, only that I had two hours (and two hours again, on the way back), and that there weren't as many crossovers between _A Song of Ice and Fire_ and _Doctor Who_ as I'd like. Consequently there's little in the way of which Doctor this is (although of course the "Geronimo" at the end makes it clear, but when I started writing I thought it might be Twelve), and not much plot, but I wrote it up anyways.
> 
> In hopes that some of you might've liked it,
> 
> Gazyrlezon.


End file.
